Learning Optimism from a Nonfiction Text
Grade
Grade 5
UNIT
1
•
Optimism
Unit 1, Lesson 2, “Learning Optimism from a Nonfiction Text,” reinforces the vocabulary word optimism. Students will learn an example of optimism from the life of a real person. Students will practice their reading comprehension skills by listening to a read aloud and following along with a nonfiction text. Finally, students will create their own sentences that demonstrate their reading comprehension and share their sentences with a partner.
SUGGESTED TIME:
20 minutes
RELATED SUBJECT:
English Language Arts
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Listen to a read aloud of a nonfiction text, and follow along with the text, to support reading comprehension
- Demonstrate understanding of the main idea of a nonfiction text
- Describe the relationship between a series of events or ideas in a nonfiction text
- Demonstrate comprehension of the vocabulary words slavery and abolitionism
- Demonstrate understanding of the character strength of optimism
- Demonstrate understanding of standard English sentence structure and grammar
- Practice reading and conversation skills by sharing sentences with classmates
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
- Video: Frederick Douglass: First African American Nominated for Vice President by Biography (~3 min)
- Video: “What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?”: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech from NPR (~7 min)
- Prohuman Grade 5 Unit 1 Worksheet 2: Learning Optimism from a Nonfiction Text
VOCABULARY:
- Slavery: The practice of people owning other people. Enslaved people had to work for the owners, doing whatever the owners asked them to do. In the past, many societies had slavery, including America. Now, almost all societies consider slavery to be wrong. Freedom is a basic human right. (Source: Britannica Kids)
- Abolitionism: The movement to end slavery and free enslaved people.
- Optimism: I have hope and believe that my actions will help things to turn out well
ELA COMMON CORE STANDARDS MET
CHARACTER AND SOCIAL EMOTIONAL (CSED) NATIONAL STANDARDS MET
LESSON PROCEDURE
- Show students this photograph of Frederick Douglass and tell them that he was the most photographed man of the 19th century. He was photographed more than even Abraham Lincoln.
- Tell them that Frederick Douglass was an extremely important figure in American history. He was born into slavery and became a great writer and speaker who worked to end slavery.
- Write on the board: Abolitionism - The movement to end slavery and free enslaved people.
- Play the video: Frederick Douglass: First African American Nominated for Vice President by Biography (~3 min)
- Today, we will read one of Frederick Douglass’ most famous speeches called “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” which he gave in 1852. We will follow along with the text on our worksheets. This version of the speech is read by his descendants.
- Play the video: “What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?”: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech from NPR (~7 min)
- Have students follow along with the text on their worksheets.
- Have students write the answers to the worksheet questions.
- Have students share their answers with a partner.
GRADE 5 UNIT 1 WORKSHEET 2: LEARNING OPTIMISM FROM A NONFICTION TEXT
NONFICTION TEXT: EXCERPTS FROM “WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?” SPEECH BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1852)
The complete text of the speech is available here.
This is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.
Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects.
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment.
With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression.
They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?
Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!
Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.
The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.
- What does Douglass praise about the American Founders?
- What does Douglass criticize about America?
- Why do you think Douglass expresses optimism at the end of the speech, saying, “I do not despair of this country”?
- Why do you think that many of the descendants of Douglass featured in this video have hope?
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